In our world these days with so much social media and the ability to put your voice out there, it is easy to hear opinions and arguments on every side of any discussion. It can be easy to have an opinion and voice it,
whether we are for or against something. What I want to share with you today gets a lot of negative attention, yet I want to share with you our own personal experience of how we chose to do this differently and what our outcome was because of it.
For a very long time we have taught that Love is the absence of judgement. Think about this with me, you cannot be in love and judgement at the same time. You must choose the one that is stronger and that you allow yourself to be in. For many people it is difficult to stay in unconditional love almost all the time and this is something that I often challenge clients to do and learn how to consciously do it continually. We must be willing to make a concentrated effort to come from our heart rather than our head and stay in unconditional love.
This past weekend we had a wedding for my son. It did not look like what I once thought or assumed it would look like. In fact, it was much different. We had a Gay Wedding for my son. I love my son completely. Always have and always will. I love his partner, now his husband, completely too. Yet for me, our family and our
beliefs, or whatever you would call it, the whole Gay wedding just did not fit. For us, we had to DECIDE how we wanted this to look and how we wanted to CHOOSE to handle it.
For everything that happens in your life, you have to make a decision and you have to choose how you will act or react to what is going on. If you have been with me very long, you know well about some of our challenges with my son with Cancer twice, our story of adoption with our daughter, my twin brother’s suicide, going through 5 deaths of close family and friends in two years, and several other things and how I developed the 7 Traits that I teach and wrote a book about and how I teach to do things differently. Well, this is the same thing. You have a choice in how you react!
I believe that if I am sharing it from the stage and in my book, I surely MUST LIVE IT!! I want to share a post that I posted on Facebook last Friday, the day before the wedding for thousands to read:
‘Tis the day before “Our Big Fat Gay Wedding”…..
I started my day quite early, unable to sleep with lots of thoughts rolling inside my head and emotions running quite high, so I chose to do things a bit differently. I opened up Netflix and there popped up Momma Mia! (Yes, I have loved this movie and had never been able to get it on Netflix before.)
I watched this movie all the while thinking of my own situation….did I once picture this moment in my head and it looked different than what reality is coming to be? Absolutely. Has it pushed my buttons? Absolutely. Have I shed tears? Absolutely. Have I questioned if I was strong enough? Absolutely. But what I can tell you is this…
I ABSOLUTELY and UNCONDITIONALLY love my son, Blake Barney! I have always wanted the best things for him. I have ALWAYS wanted him to find true happiness and love. I have yearned for him to have a family, as this is what he has wanted for many years. I have raised him to be independent, honorable, truthful, brave, loving, kind, dependable, a hard worker, confident, bold, brilliant, strong, committed, true, courageous, and of service to his fellowman. He is all of these things and more, so much more.
I am incredibly PROUD of my son! I am wholeheartedly happy that he has found the love of his life in Tim Loy. Does it look different than how I assumed it might look? Yes. But I know that to truly unconditionally love someone, there are always times that it looks a bit different than what you might imagine or assume for that
matter. I am THRILLED to be adding two Amazing Grandchildren to our family and am excited to be a “parent in law” to Tim. It is a happy day to be adding these wonderful people to our family and loving and caring for them fully. After all, that is what life is all about, right?
I began today watching a story about a wedding….rather a CELEBRATION of love, family, and happiness. This is what we are creating tomorrow. A CELEBRATION of LOVE. A Unity of FAMILY, full of SUPPORT and HAPPINESS.
What can you expect tomorrow? A HUGE celebration of LOVE and an abundance of HAPPINESS. (Not to mention a gorgeous venue with all the bells and whistles…) We are going to P-A-R-T-Y with the best of them! Here’s to you, Blake & Tim…Let the Games begin!!
Why do I share this with you? Because I have watched so many times that this is not what happens! I have hundreds of clients or friends and even strangers that ask me how I can do this or tell me stories of their own experience where this is not the case! How sad is that? Even attendees at this wedding could not believe the amount of love and acceptance that was given.
What I want you to know is that living in unconditional love gives you peace. Living in judgement gives you pain. Which one do you want to choose? We really are at choice in how we react to any situation and we create our own outcome. In this situation, we consciously chose to have peace and happiness. To create a loving environment of acceptance and love and have the greatest party ever!
Here is what our outcome was. I posted this post on Facebook after the wedding with pictures to show just what we did create:
Our “Big Fat Gay Wedding” was absolutely PERFECT! We were able to Celebrate Love, Unity, and Family.
Yes, we danced down the aisle to begin the party, we had a “gay” officiator and ceremony with their own vows and tears, we had delicious food, a gorgeous venue, an incredible ice sculpture, a gay rainbow wedding cake, a grooms passionate first dance that turned into “Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy” country dance with a full dance floor and everyone screaming the words and dancing to their hearts content, we had a Father’s “toast” that he started with an actual piece of toast, a “Surprise Mother/Groom dance that I had been told would NOT happen, but they surprised me and it was AMAZING, we had tons of our family and close friends come to support us and love on 
Blake & Tim Loy and we wrapped up the night with a Bubbles and Sparkler send off.
Many Thanks go out to all our family and friends for their love and support, and to all the troops that traveled from Arizona to be here for Tim & Blake as well! It truly was a Celebration with happiness and love abounding from everywhere. I cannot wait to see all the moments caught on film for our memories to last a lifetime! I LOVE my FAMILY!
As you can see, it was an incredible day and an incredible experience. I know that it could have been so different if we would not have chosen to live this day in unconditional love and be willing to choose to find the joy in the journey. My challenge for all of us is that we look deep into our hearts and find the love that we deserve to share with others. My hope is that we can all strive to make the choice to live our lives in Unconditional love on a consistent basis and allow the peace into our lives because of it.
Remember, life is all about our choices and how we choose to live it. Make the decision to live your life in Unconditional Love and enjoy your journey, regardless of your circumstances!
Watch our episode today as Bill & I share our experience with you and give you a few tips on just how you can do this!